Monroe and Drummond participate in USA Basketball's mini-camp

Pistons Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond hope to one day earn a roster spot with USA Basketball and represent their country in international competition.

Both took a step towards that goal by taking part in USA Basketball’s mini-camp in Las Vegas this week.

The mini-camp features 28 players invited by USA Basketball, but does not include past national team members, who are not required to attend.

“This is definitely something I would love to be a part of,” Monroe said. “USA Basketball is something that’s huge and to be able to represent your country.”

In addition to Monroe and Drummond, the mini-camp features several quality big men in New Orleans’ Ryan Anderson, Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins, Utah’s Derrick Favors, the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan, Milwaukee’s Larry Sanders, Cleveland’s Tyler Zeller, Creighton’s Doug McDermott and New Orleans’ Anthony Davis, who was on the 2012 Olympic team.

Monroe said the competition has been great and everyone has been looking leave a mark.

“I think overall everyone has been competing,” Monroe said. “Every since we’ve been here everybody’s been playing hard. The games have been very competitive. I think guys are out here to try to make a good impression. Try to play as hard and good as they can.”

The 2012 Olympic team had just three true big men in Davis, Minnesota’s Kevin Love and New York’s Tyson Chandler.

National team coach Mike Krzyzewski and his staff could be looking to add more big men for the World Cup (formerly the World Championships), but Krzyzewski has been tight lipped about individual players.

“They haven’t come out and said, ‘Ok, we definitely need some bigs’ ” Monroe said. “Coach K has made a few comments to media sources about maybe trying to find some extra big men, but they haven’t come out to us and said that.”

Monroe was not chosen to be a member of the 2012 select team, which featured Cousins and Favors, members of the same draft class as Monroe. The snub last year aside, Monroe is glad to taking part this year.

“Of course at that time I definitely felt I could have been a part of it, but that was a year ago now,” Monroe said. “I just wanted to come out here and play as best as I could to make a good impression.”

Monroe and Drummond both have experience playing for USA Basketball. Monroe was a member of the 2008 Junior National Select team and Drummond helped USA Basketball win the gold at the 2010 FIBA Under-17 World Championship and 2009 FIBA Americas 16U championship.

“Just being here again, I was part of the junior national team as well, just being invited here again was a blessing,” Drummond said. “Being on the floor I wasn’t really nervous at all. It was just fun for me to be out here this week.”

While in Las Vegas, Monroe and Drummond got a chance to meet new teammate Chauncey Billups, who has played for the national team in the past.

“We did go and sit down and have dinner with Chauncey yesterday, and some of the other people on the staff,” Monroe said. “So we got a chance to sit down and talk to him, get to know him a little bit.”

The min-camp concludes Thursday with a scrimmage, which will be televised on NBA TV starting at 9 p.m.

Monroe and Drummond will be on opposite teams during the scrimmage.

“The first day we were actually on the same team,” Monroe said. “They changed teams up the first two days. The second day we were on different teams and each team played everyone so we got a chance to play against each other.”

Dave Pemberton covers the Pistons for Digital First Media. Email him at dave.pemberton@oakpress.com and follow him on Twitter @drpemberton.